The storm strengthened from 130 mph to 140 mph and is Category 4 the NHC said

Forecasters are anxious about the surge from Hurricane Florence, which is expected to be a major storm when it pounds the Carolinas on Thursday and Friday.

North Florida is still outside the cone of forecast tracks for the center of the storm, but the size of Florence means impacts will extend to a large area of the Southeast.

As of 11am local time (3am NZT), Florence, a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm, was centred 785 kilometres southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, moving at 24kmh.

While people on the ground are preparing for floods, high winds and surging waves, the satellites and astronauts in orbit are looking down on the storm from above, and the views are startling.

"I'm scared we'll get 30 inches or more of rain", said Carol Trojniar, 69, a longtime Wilmington resident and retired real estate agent who has never experienced a Category 4 hurricane. It was packing winds of 215kmh and enough moisture to dump 30cm of rain on the region.

Florence is so wide that a life-threatening storm surge was being pushed 300 miles ahead of its eye, and so wet that a swathe from SC to OH and Pennsylvania could get deluged.

What's more certain is beach erosion and risky surf conditions.

At Fort Bragg, an inland Army base in North Carolina, officials told The Fayetteville Observer the majority of the 82nd Airborne Division's helicopter fleet was being evacuated to one of two sites in Georgia.

"No matter where this storm comes ashore, it will have widespread, significant impacts in North Carolina", he said. She was going to ride the storm out in the Myrtle Beach area where she lives.

"Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck?" said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Cooper and his SC counterpart, Henry McMaster, told the more than 1 million people who have been told to leave that if they don't, they are on their own.

The National Weather Service says nearly half of all deaths from tropical cyclones come from storm surge. And then from there, it's going across the area meaning a big flooding threat is in the forecast. All lanes of Interstate 26 are westbound to allow more people to leave the coast and head inland toward the state capital of Columbia.

With the storm churning across the Atlantic with 140 miles per hour winds, hurricane watches and warnings include the homes of more than 5.4 million people on the East Coast.

"The biggest thing is you're always anxious about yourself and friends and family - and whether they'll have a place to come back to", he said. President Trump has declared an emergency in the three states and says the government is "as ready as anybody has ever been".

In the 57th minute, Spain captain Sergio Ramos headed in his 14th worldwide goal for the team's fifth on the night. That proved to be the final piece of goal-mouth action as Spain claimed a second straight Nations League win.

Daniel shared that 'There's a small group of us that check in with her and see how she's doing, but she's still the same person'. They watched the wedding together and hope to one day welcome Meghan and her husband, Prince Harry , to Georgia.

Moscow continues to deny everything, claiming the attack was staged by Britain to stoke up anti-Russia sentiment in Britain. Mr Putin said Moscow had identified the suspects and found that they were civilians.

On 31 August, citing Trump's new tariffs , Ford said it was dropping plans to ship the Focus Active from China to America. The company said about 80% of the vehicles Ford sells in the United States are built domestically.

But then the story took a dark turn, with accusations of mismanagement and outright theft of the money raised on Bobbitt's behalf. The couple also bought Bobbitt a camper with some of the funds and parked it on land McClure's family owns in New Jersey.

To his credit, Woodward admits that the administration's Iran policy has left it without any major ally in the worldwide arena. Just a day earlier, The Washington Post published excerpts from an upcoming book by famed Watergate reporter, Bob Woodward .

Issac became the fifth hurricane of this season on Sunday night when it was around 1,300 miles east of the Windward Islands. Little change in strength is forecast today, with slight weakening starting tonight and continuing through Tuesday.

Five people were shot, some multiple times, in the incident, they said, adding that the gunman felled in a shootout with officers. Police Chief Eliot Isaac said three or four officers exchanged gunfire with the shooter , identified as Omar Santa Perez.

Though she's always been an activist for her favored causes of education and same-sex marriage, running for office is new to her. A Siena College poll released Monday shows Cuomo with a 41 percentage point lead over Nixon heading into Thursday's primary.

It wasn't much different following a game against the Cardinals at Soldier Field early in his second season. Rodgers was later carted off the field, but would return to the field for the Packers after halftime .

He also lashed out at the Northern Ireland " backstop " - the measure aimed at making sure there is no hard border with Ireland. Johnson's column appeared a day after he and his wife Marina Wheeler announced they had separated and planned to divorce.

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